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North Country (2005) - ★★★★☆


Whenever I sit down to watch a new Woody movie, I like to know as little about the movie as possible. It makes the experience sort of exhilerating—where will Woody pop up?!—and, in my opinion, makes my reviews feel fresh and full of life. That's why when I saw the tiny thumbnail for North Country on the xfinity website, I thought the woman depicted wearing rugged mining clothes was Jane Seymour. 
In case you didn't already know, Jane Seymour is the star of my favorite woke 90s TV show, Dr Quinn Medicine Woman (importantly, a TV show which I believe should have a comma in the title, but doesn't, both on the TV Guide and when it's written out on the box of the DVDs). Jane Seymour plays the titular role, a lady doctor who has travelled out west from her cushy life in Boston to the frontier of Colorado Springs after the Civil War. There she encounters all kinds of fabulous types, like Sully, the rugged former miner who spends most of his time throwing his tomahawk, walking around with his dog, Wolf,  and hanging out with the Cherokee who live nearby (naturally, this means Sully constantly wears fringe and has a rat tail). 
The prospect of Woody Harrelson and Jane Seymour starring in a movie together really got me excited, mostly because it made me realize just how well Woody would have fit in on Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. He could hang out at Hank's saloon, and help Sully build the new school house! On the episode with the Johnny Cash cameo, Woody and Johnny could sing cowboy songs around a campfire together. And maybe on that episode where some of the townsfolk unwittingly join the KKK, Woody could have let them know that was maybe not so great an idea, and Sully would never have had to throw his tomahawk to end a lynching. I can even see Woody stopping by Grace's cafe to get a slice of pie before he heads over to Dr. Quinn's office so she can check out his toothache. With the help of her all-knowing doctor's book, she could even give him some plastic surgery, if that's what he wanted. 

Of course, all my dreaming was for naught, because Jane Seymour is not in this movie, and even if she was, North Country is decidedly not one of the two TV movies based on Dr. Quinn which aired after the series itself ended. 

Charlize Theron is in this movie, and I actually enjoyed it quite a bit! I think it's the first movie on this journey that's made me cry, which is quite the milestone, considering it's the 27th movie I've watched, and if I had to estimate, I'd say I cry at about half the movies I watch total, Woody Harrelson or otherwise. If that statistic holds true with specifically Woody Harrelson movies, I guess that means I have quite a bit of crying ahead of me....

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